TITLE: HORTUS — a closed world
PROMPT: Build 'HORTUS — a closed world', a sealed jar terrarium: a glass vessel (convex refraction rim, condensation cycle) containing layered substrate, moss mounds, a fern unfurling, and a tiny springtail population; mist forms on glass and drips back on a slow loop; light from a side lamp drives a gentle day cycle; humidity and growth meters read like a field notebook. Palette: glass-bottle greens, substrate umbers, mist white. Interactions: the lamp angle drags, casting moving light and shadows; a MIST button triggers rainfall inside; pruning shears trim the fern, which regrows differently; spotting scope mode magnifies the springtails going about their business; a time-lapse button grows months in seconds. Miniature, self-contained, breathing.
DESCRIPTION: A sealed glass jar on the bench: CSS vessel with a brass lid, refraction glint streak, and static condensation beads; inside, a canvas world of layered umber substrate with grit speckle, nine moss mounds that swell with the growth meter, seven fern fronds drawn as quadratic-curling stems with paired leaflets that lengthen as biomass grows, wandering springtails, and falling rain drops when you mist. The side lamp eases toward your click (or SWING LAMP) casting a radial light cone whose angle shifts the interior light and shadow; MAKE IT RAIN raises humidity and drops rain that the substrate drinks; PRUNE FERN cuts a random frond short which regrows differently; TIME-LAPSE scales the simulation clock ~250× so days advance in seconds, growth climbs, and a night veil breathes over the jar. A field journal reads humidity, growth, and day count.
TECHNIQUES: eased lamp-angle lighting with radial-gradient cone, growth-parameterized fern renderer (quadratic stems, paired leaflets scaled by biomass), humidity-coupled rain and condensation-runner particle systems, springtail wander agents, simulation-clock scaling for time-lapse, canvas substrate layering with speckle, CSS jar construction with lid and glint.
INTERACTION: Click inside the jar to move the lamp light; MIST rains inside and raises humidity; PRUNE trims a frond which regrows; TIME-LAPSE runs months in seconds; watch the meters breathe.